


Moments

by toristreet



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toristreet/pseuds/toristreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of moments in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Moment 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to receive any feedback on this story and my writing. I hope you enjoy!

Her elbow rests heavily on the bar, drink in hand. Stale-cigarette-and-beer smells waft from the carpet and curtains; the wood of the bar is sticky against her arm. She balances a look of casual nonchalance on her face with an attentiveness in her stance. Her eyes flit between her sisters, one claiming as much of the world’s attention as she can manage, the other as little.

She is not above this place (far from it; didn’t you hear Tom behind the bar call her by name?), but she thinks she might be beyond it.

She hasn’t been out with Lydia much. Or at all, really. Lydia has only been of drinking age for a few months, but Lizzie has been avoiding interacting with her socially for about four years now. Hence their sisterly bond hasn’t been helped along by alcohol just yet. And probably won’t be tonight.

Jane is checking her phone regularly, although managing - who knows how? - not to offend the guy chatting her up while doing it. Lizzie doesn’t wonder what she’s checking for. The text message rally between her and Bing has been constant for days. Lizzie tries not to get tired of it.

She really, really wanted to stay home tonight. But between Lydia’s desperation to come out, and Jane’s eagerness for Lizzie to get to know Bing better, she really had no hope.

Her tendency towards seclusion these days stems partly from not wanting to be doing what she’s doing right now - feigning disinterest but not being able to rip her eyes away from her sister, desperately hoping she doesn’t do anything embarrassing. And partly because as much as she likes Bing, she feels uneasy about him. Or perhaps the company he keeps.

Lydia shrieks from across the room and Lizzie turns, startled. Thankfully it seems that was a laughter-shriek, not a being-assaulted-shriek. Lizzie feels frustration well inside her, born by a self-entitlement that she knows is unbecoming but can’t help. ‘Why do I have to look out for her? Why does her immaturity mean that I’m inconvenienced?’

She tells herself to shut up and takes a sip of the Vodka-Cranberry that Lydia had shoved into her hand. Its sickly-sweetness makes her grumpier.

A moment later Bing and his friends have walked through the door, and Jane practically floats towards him. Lizzie doesn’t follow, doesn’t even look over. Instead, she turns to search the room, suddenly frantically aware of how strange she must look just standing there, drink in hand, alone. She spies Ben, an old high school friend at the other end of the bar. She hasn’t spoken to him in ages, and it’s kind of weird that they’ve both been here the whole time without talking, but she doesn’t have much of a choice. ‘You’re going to have to do, buddy,’ she thinks, and makes her way over as quickly as possible.

“Hey Ben how are you doing? It’s been a while, want a drink?”

“Hey Lizzie.” He asks about grad school, but it’s no use, she can’t concentrate a word he’s saying. Poor guy. She manages to squeeze a few words out then waves the Tom over and gets another god-awful Vodka-Cranberry, and by gosh, if she could just focus for a minute, instead of feeling like the back of her neck is burning up, then perhaps she could have a normal, adult conversation here.

They sit like that for a few moments, Lizzie stammering three-word replies to Ben’s very generous questioning, but soon he makes his escape. She knows she should feel bad - he must have wondered what that was all about - but is too focussed on getting her drink down to feel much remorse. She figures the quicker she drinks, the quicker this whole situation will get less painful.

‘What situation?’ A voice in her head asks. ‘What is actually going on here?’

“Shut up.” She mutters.

“Sorry?”

She wheels around, splashing cranberry juice on her wrist. Darcy is standing right behind her. Who sneaks up on people like that?

“What?” She knows her tone is less than polite, but between the vodka, keeping an eye on Lydia (currently learning how to play pool from a guy with full-sleeve tatts. Like she hasn’t been beating her whole family at pool since age 14), and the whole  _being_  here, she just doesn’t care.

“I think you said shut up. I hadn’t even said hello yet.”

“Oh. Well. Sorry?” She swivels her bar stool around so her back is to him, hoping he will get the hint. But the back of her neck just gets hotter.

Instead of walking away, like the view of her back should have told him to, he sits down next to her in the seat that Ben has just vacated.

“Having a … nice night?” 

“Hmph.” She wants to leave it at that, but social conditioning is strong, it seems. She finds herself trying to be polite. “Not really.” But not too polite.

“Ah.”

And then the silence. The familiar, bone-breakingly loud silence that seems to descend whenever Darcy is around. She can’t stand it. It makes her awkward and intimidated and all she can think is what he might be thinking about.

But tonight it does give her leave to keep an eye on Lydia, and to check once in a while on Jane’s happiness levels (300%, all on track). Eventually, when it seems everyone is settling in for the night and no craziness is about to occur, Lizzie takes out her phone and opens her kindle app.

She hasn’t forgotten he’s there. The silence is too loud and overwhelming for that, but as long as he’s willing to pass the time this way, so is she.

Hey, at least there’s no small talk.


	2. Moment 2

She finds herself thinking of him, for no reason. The strangest things spark memories. When shopping for a Christmas present for Jane, she spies a black and white dress that make her think of suspenders against a pale shirt. Once she watches a movie with Charlotte and could have sworn she saw him in the background.

It’s easy to explain, of course. The letter had an impact on her that is perhaps more profound than it deserved. It’s easily dismissed at first - this was simply information she wasn’t privy to. Who makes accurate character assessments when operating on limited information? And he hardly helped his case, either, all stiff-necked and stammering.

But it seems to simmer inside her, this handwritten, wax-sealed letter. It takes a while to boil over, but days later she finds herself re-examining her memories, turning her conversations with Darcy around and around in her head. By the time a week has passed she feels like one of those glass snow-filled baubles (oh, the cliches that she has become prone to) - shaken around and around, turned upside down, no longer sure which way is up.

So much seems different now in her memories of him, in the world of past events that she keeps replaying. But she’s a storyteller - she knows how memories can change, be clouded, prone to rewriting. Could that be what he wanted all along? Was this memory-shifting the letter’s very purpose? Did he know the affect it would have?

But even the idea of his intentionally manipulating her impressions don’t anger her, don’t make her as indignant as they once would have. The impact of this letter of his is too deep; it appears she can no longer think ill of him at all.

And yet, she knows these memories are unstable. She can’t remember what he was really like, can’t figure out what he is like, either. She is in the dark about William Darcy, and for some reason, she is thoroughly uncomfortable being so.

So when she finds herself at Pemberley Digital, not expecting to see its so-universally-well-thought-of CEO, she is not a little disappointed. Here was an opportunity to harvest real-world, real-time data; to clear up these blurred portraits she holds of him in her well worn memories.

And then he is thrust into her makeshift office, his little sister’s hand on his shoulder, her hand so clearly in this awkward meeting. Lizzie can barely meet his eye, but wants to drink him in. She wants to fill up on his presence, this strange new curiosity about him almost - but not quite - overriding her discomfort. She knows he must be playing and replaying their last meeting in his head, that his memories of her are as discoloured by the things she said to him as hers are coloured by the things he said to her. But while he thinks of her words, she thinks of his letter. That careful, precisely-written letter that is now the only impression of him that she can trust.

Until now; now he is here, and there are gaps in her mind and memory that she longs to fill.

She has much to learn.


	3. Moment 3

When she looks back, she will remember little of today. She remembers fumbling for her bag, turning this way and that before before finding it near his feet. She remembers picking it up and then not knowing what to do with it. It sits there in her lap for a second, forgotten. 

Darcy speaks to her and she's so distracted by him even being there that she's lost in time for a minute. She is starting to panic, and all she can wonder is why he's here - why should Darcy of all people be here in her moment of panic?

But he speaks again and she's crashing to earth, frantically putting her things away. He wants to help, and she can't even - it's too much to try and even think what he could do. How could he possibly help her now?

She doesn't remember them talking, but she thinks she remembers thanking him. She is glad, now, that she had the presence of mind to do this, to stop him and look him in the eye and acknowledge his... his what? His sensitivity? Acknowledge what she believed he was doing to help - booking flights, packing her things? 

Not knowing what he would actually do, what he was really capable of, she is glad that she was able to thank him in some small way then. She certainly wouldn't get the chance to thank him now.

She remembers leaving the building and seeing him standing on the sidewalk, so clearly not sure what to do with his hands, once again. Through the fog of her panic and burgeoning grief, she is amazed at his capacity to feel uncomfortable in these utterly common situations. He waits beside a sleek black sedan, and something tells her this might be his own personal car and driver. As he opens the door for her she looks up at him, not knowing what to say. She remembers the look in his eyes, the grim set about his eyes, the sadness and the strange look of determination that she now understands. He already had a plan, even when she was still buried in confusion.

And then, somehow, she is on a plane, worrying for her poor baby sister. And then home, and trying to get her head around no longer having a bedroom. She wonders briefly what this means. She has a vague sense of being hurtled through time and space; that soon she will be forced to move into a new phase of life that she isn't quite ready for yet. But if she's honest with herself, which she will be when all this is over and she looks back on it, she knows that this new phase isn't so new. Charlotte has left, Jane has left, and Lydia... well, in a sense Lydia has left. Or at least changed. And if San Francisco was supposed to be this new phase for Lizzie, and if that didn't work out, well perhaps it's time to find a new San Francisco. 

But at the time, all this is just a vague feeling at the pit of her stomach that she tries to avoid as she sets up her camera in the den.

Perhaps worst of all, she remembers nothing of the conversation with Lydia that she caught on film - that horrid, traumatic, callous reveal. Well, that's not quite true. She remembers it perfectly, but all her memories look exactly like the YouTube video, and she can tell that she has simply washed it too many times. 

She wants to apologise to Lydia for this conversation, but has never known how. Every time she tries to bring it up, the shame envelopes her and all she can think is that she is no kind of sister, she can't even remember the conversation she wants to apologise for. Lydia deserved more from her big sister, and Lizzie can never take that conversation back.

She feels like punishing herself, and when she punishes herself, she watches her old videos. It makes her skin crawl to realise that this Lizzie is who her viewers know - this Lizzie that they see on her videos. And she feels nauseous when the voice inside her head tells her - truthfully, she knows - that the Lizzie in her videos is, after all, the real Lizzie. The Lizzie that had that remorseless, heartless conversation with her baby sister is the real Lizzie. For now.

So she watches her videos, again and again. Perhaps if she watches all her mistakes over, she can speed up this character changing process that she so wishes to be through already. If she could take back Lydia's pain, or Darcy's humiliation, by removing those parts of her that contributed to them, she would. If she can apologise to them both by shaming herself into oblivion, she will.

And it's by watching the videos later that she sees what she most wished she could remember. She sees that he touched her - that he comforted her. He touched her elbow, then her upper arm, then her back. And really, of all the things to forget from that day, this seems the strangest, and the worst. Weeks later, when Lydia has started eating again and Jane is back at work and Lizzie is supposed to be working on her thesis, she keeps coming back to this day, and these moments she has lost. 

And most of all she keeps - to her shame - coming back to this video. Of all the mistakes to learn from, somehow this moment is illuminated. 

She has watched it so many times now that she can almost, almost feel his hand there, at her shoulder blade. But she knows it's some weird psychological shadow-phantom-hand, not a real memory. And she can't help but think how she'd like a real memory of his hand touching her elbow, and her upper arm, and her back.


	4. Moment 4

When Lizzie imagined how this day would go - and she spent all of Friday imagining it - she pictured Gigi and Darcy striding ahead, their calves and thighs completely at peace with these “unforgiving hills.” She pictured herself far behind, panting and - oh goodness, how embarrassing - sweating a little.

And that’s pretty much how it goes. Gigi looks down at her, trudging up the slope, and laughs. She finds it amusing that Lizzie is so disgruntled, so put out by these hills. This seems mighty unfair, given how Gigi is practically a nationally-ranked tennis player and so clearly has an advantage. She is an athlete, for goodness’ sake. Lizzie says this (or rather, squeezes the words out between big gulps of air), but Gigi just smiles. Darcy has gone ahead to get them a table for lunch, and Lizzie is thankful. She does not need him to see her like this, hair matted against her sweaty neck.

Gigi drags her up the rest of the hill, offering annoying little pep-talks the whole way, and finally they reach the top. Lizzie is bent over, all sweaty and out of breath, hoping that’s the last of the hills for the day, when Darcy calls to them from across the road. 

“Damn.” Lizzie hopes Gigi hasn’t heard; but really, this is all just a bit much. That she would appear so dishevelled even with Gigi is hard to bear - but that Darcy should see her panting, practically having a heart attack in the middle of the street? It seems like some weird sort of cosmic revenge. 

But then she thinks it’s strange that this even bothers her. Didn’t she play tennis with Fitz? Wasn’t she practically dripping with sweat then? Had she even thought to be embarrassed? Not for a moment. ‘That doesn’t count,’ she thinks. ‘Fitz is gay.’

But that highlights that Darcy isn’t gay and the notion that this is somehow relevant to Lizzie. She feels like she should be kind of appalled at this whole line of thinking. But somehow, she isn’t. 

So here she is, walking towards Darcy, trying to bring her heart rate down past exploding-point, and wondering how she looks. She wants to reach up and smooth her hair. She wants to go into the bathroom and check that the sweat on her forehead isn’t - ugh - visible. But she resists, even raising her chin in a small sign of defiance. Defiance of what, exactly? Whatever part of her is telling her to care, she supposes.

In the meantime, there is no hint from Darcy that he even notices. He smiles vaguely at them both and gestures to their table. They are dining al fresco, at a small tapas place just set back from the pavement. He holds a chair out for Lizzie. As she sits, she looks up at him.

She’s not sure why she does; in hindsight, when reflecting on this moment, it seems a strange choice. He is looking down at her, but it takes a split-second for their eyes to meet. In that tiny instant, he appears to be… drinking is the only word she can think of that seems appropriate. His eyes are scanning - the top of her head, her ears, a second over her jaw, her shoulders, her breasts - at which something in her mind squeaks a little. He seems to be taking in so much, trying to see everything he can, and then his eyes meet hers.

It is terribly, painfully awkward. And so short - later she won’t be able to fathom how quick it actually was. Their eyes catch each others’, and then dart away, and Darcy sits. Lizzie glances at Gigi, but she is apparently oblivious, calling for a waiter. She looks over at Darcy, wanting to catch his eye again (why? She couldn’t say), but his head is in a menu and - she thinks perhaps he is blushing.

Lizzie leans back in her chair, trying once again to calm her heartbeat, but she’s unsure this time whether it is still the hills, or something else entirely. 

Now she does reach a hand up to smooth her hair, and tugs on her sweater to make sure it’s sitting right. There is some thought curling around the back of her mind that she can’t quite pin down, and it won’t be until Gigi and Darcy have dropped her at home later that night, and she is lying in bed running her thoughts through the day that she will catch it and hold it to the light.

It is a strange thought, and full of words that she wouldn’t have associated with William Darcy a few months ago. It sits uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach, but it sits there strongly. She imagines she’ll have to get used to it soon enough, because it doesn’t feel like it wants to move. 

‘He still wants me,’ she thinks to herself. ‘He may not love me, and he may only like me a little, but he still wants me.’

She lets that sink in for a while, and then completes it. ‘And I think I might want him too.’


End file.
